Social Media and College Applications

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With the school year now in full swing, seniors at NMHS are starting to plan their futures after high school, but what a lot of students don’t realize is that colleges and jobs they apply to may be inspecting their social media accounts. The Director of Research at Kaplan Test Prep says many admissions officers believe “social media can provide a more authentic and holistic view of applicants beyond the polished applications.”

According to the Educational Consultation firm Ivywise, 27% of admissions directors Google their prospective students and 35% found something that “negatively impacted an applicant’s chances of getting in.” But if you’re thinking you’re off the hook because you didn’t post that picture from that party or tweet how great of a party it was, you might want to check again. Colleges may be turned off by posts with foul language and slurs, offensive jokes, posts talking about how awful your boss is, or even just bad spelling and grammar.

You’ve already been accepted? You still aren’t in the clear. What many students applying to college don’t know is that colleges can actually revoke your acceptance. Though it doesn’t happen often, it is not impossible. Colleges will rescind admission if a student’s final grades drop significantly, if the student faced extreme disciplinary actions by their school or arrest outside of school, and if a student lied on their application. However, actions on social media are now forcing some colleges to reevaluate who they have accepted into their school. This past year, Harvard University rescinded the admission of ten prospective students after finding offensive memes in a group chat they had made for some Harvard students. According to Forbes.com, the posts included jokes about the Holocaust, child abuse, sexual assault, and various minority groups. Punishments for offensive or insensitive jokes have brought up the topic of freedom of speech and the extent of student’s First Amendment rights, but many colleges have honor codes that students must follow and can therefore be punished for breaking. Even though these students were not yet officially part of the school, they were expected to behave as if they were already representing the college.

However, colleges aren’t necessarily looking for negative posts. If carried out correctly, your social media may even make you more appealing. Kaplan Test Prep conducted a study which revealed that one admissions officer viewed a student’s Twitter and found that she had run her own LGBT+ panel. This was not reflected in her application, but the admissions officer felt it showed many great qualities in her. In this way, some advise students to curate their social media accounts in a way that will positively reflect who they are and what they are passionate about.

All in all, teenagers will make mistakes, but these mistakes don’t have to be broadcast online for the whole world to see because you never know who’s watching and waiting for you to make a mistake. With the newest iOS update which allows screen recording, students should be even more wary of what they post online or even text privately, especially on apps like Snapchat which would previously alert you if someone had screenshotted something of yours. Now, people can simply record your posts using the screen recording feature. It may be cliché, but the Internet really is forever.

So if you’re planning on applying to college this year, try to clean up your social media presence. Begin by Googling yourself. Start with your name. Then do your name + your high school. Then try your name + your town. What comes up? You’d be surprised how much of your life may have been reported by local newspapers with your social media attached to it or that your private social media accounts still appear in a simple Google search. Fix your privacy settings. Delete your offensive or questionable posts. Check your tagged posts and your likes. Maybe you didn’t post a questionable picture, but your best friend did. Your online presence says much more about you than your application does.

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Isabella Lopez is a senior at New Milford High School and this is her first year writing for The Lance. She is part of the Drama Club, Lean In Circle, Hypelite, BUDDY and SIGMA. In her free time she likes to watc...